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Revisiting the role of transpiration in the variation of ecosystem water use efficiency in China

Sun, Huaiwei ; Lu, Mengge ; Yang, Yong ; Chen, Jianing LU ; Wang, Jingfeng ; Yan, Dong ; Xue, Jie and Zhang, Wenxin LU orcid (2023) In Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 332.
Abstract

Efforts to develop effective climate strategies necessitate a better understanding of the relationship between terrestrial water and carbon cycles. Water use efficiency (WUE) has been often used to characterize this relationship, while the role of transpiration (T) in the variation of ecosystem WUE has been less investigated. Here, we partitioned WUEET (the ratio of gross primary productivity (GPP) to evapotranspiration (ET)) into a two-component process, i.e., the ratio of gross primary productivity to plant transpiration, GPP/T, that is WUET, and the ratio of plant transpiration to evapotranspiration, T/ET. Based on two GPP datasets (i.e., GPP based on the light use efficiency model or the vegetation index- NIRv)... (More)

Efforts to develop effective climate strategies necessitate a better understanding of the relationship between terrestrial water and carbon cycles. Water use efficiency (WUE) has been often used to characterize this relationship, while the role of transpiration (T) in the variation of ecosystem WUE has been less investigated. Here, we partitioned WUEET (the ratio of gross primary productivity (GPP) to evapotranspiration (ET)) into a two-component process, i.e., the ratio of gross primary productivity to plant transpiration, GPP/T, that is WUET, and the ratio of plant transpiration to evapotranspiration, T/ET. Based on two GPP datasets (i.e., GPP based on the light use efficiency model or the vegetation index- NIRv) and the GLEAM ET dataset, this study investigated the role of T in the variation of WUE in the ecosystem level and how the role is affected by drought. We found that drought can lead to the change of ET partitioning, thus affecting the variability of WUE. The variability of WUEET was dominated by WUET. In general, the proportion of T increased gradually from humid to arid areas. To adapt to drought conditions, vegetation in arid areas tend to have a high stress resistance by increasing their WUE. We further found that WUET has stronger seasonal stability than WUEET. GPP dominated WUEET variability in humid/sub humid areas, while ET and GPP jointly dominated WUEET variability in semi-arid/arid areas. GPP dataset based on light use efficiency (LUE) could better reflect the impact of drought on vegetation. This study contributes to a better understanding of the change mechanism of ecosystem WUE and emphasizes the critical role of physiological process components in water-carbon cycling.

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author
; ; ; ; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Evapotranspiration partition, Gross primarily productivity, Water and carbon coupling, Water availability, Water use efficiency
in
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
volume
332
article number
109344
publisher
Elsevier
external identifiers
  • scopus:85147881617
ISSN
0168-1923
DOI
10.1016/j.agrformet.2023.109344
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
Funding Information: The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editors for their helpful comments and constructive suggestions. In addition, most of the authors thank for the financial support by the Third Xinjiang Scientific Expedition Program (Grant No. 2022xjkk0105 ), the NSFC-STINT ( 52011530128 ), and NSFC ( 51879110 , 52079055 , and 42071259 ), and the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences ( 2019430 ). We thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments that greatly improved the earlier manuscript. We appreciate all organizations and persons for making the data listed in the Data Availability Statement available to the public. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 Elsevier B.V.
id
d9470f1a-d600-4a14-8b03-ff93e62ac74f
date added to LUP
2023-02-27 18:49:48
date last changed
2023-03-02 14:06:45
@article{d9470f1a-d600-4a14-8b03-ff93e62ac74f,
  abstract     = {{<p>Efforts to develop effective climate strategies necessitate a better understanding of the relationship between terrestrial water and carbon cycles. Water use efficiency (WUE) has been often used to characterize this relationship, while the role of transpiration (T) in the variation of ecosystem WUE has been less investigated. Here, we partitioned WUE<sub>ET</sub> (the ratio of gross primary productivity (GPP) to evapotranspiration (ET)) into a two-component process, i.e., the ratio of gross primary productivity to plant transpiration, GPP/T, that is WUE<sub>T</sub>, and the ratio of plant transpiration to evapotranspiration, T/ET. Based on two GPP datasets (i.e., GPP based on the light use efficiency model or the vegetation index- NIRv) and the GLEAM ET dataset, this study investigated the role of T in the variation of WUE in the ecosystem level and how the role is affected by drought. We found that drought can lead to the change of ET partitioning, thus affecting the variability of WUE. The variability of WUE<sub>ET</sub> was dominated by WUE<sub>T</sub>. In general, the proportion of T increased gradually from humid to arid areas. To adapt to drought conditions, vegetation in arid areas tend to have a high stress resistance by increasing their WUE. We further found that WUE<sub>T</sub> has stronger seasonal stability than WUE<sub>ET</sub>. GPP dominated WUE<sub>ET</sub> variability in humid/sub humid areas, while ET and GPP jointly dominated WUE<sub>ET</sub> variability in semi-arid/arid areas. GPP dataset based on light use efficiency (LUE) could better reflect the impact of drought on vegetation. This study contributes to a better understanding of the change mechanism of ecosystem WUE and emphasizes the critical role of physiological process components in water-carbon cycling.</p>}},
  author       = {{Sun, Huaiwei and Lu, Mengge and Yang, Yong and Chen, Jianing and Wang, Jingfeng and Yan, Dong and Xue, Jie and Zhang, Wenxin}},
  issn         = {{0168-1923}},
  keywords     = {{Evapotranspiration partition; Gross primarily productivity; Water and carbon coupling; Water availability; Water use efficiency}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{04}},
  publisher    = {{Elsevier}},
  series       = {{Agricultural and Forest Meteorology}},
  title        = {{Revisiting the role of transpiration in the variation of ecosystem water use efficiency in China}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2023.109344}},
  doi          = {{10.1016/j.agrformet.2023.109344}},
  volume       = {{332}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}